The CIA Is Sharing Declassified Maps

[rdtsc]

Related is the story of Soviet maps. The Soviets had engaged in a monumental effort to map the world and then during the collapse in one of the republics the classified stack of maps got in the hands of Westerners:

https://www.sovietmaps.com/

Here is a longer article about it:

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/

And also the map of San Francisco from the 80s:

http://i.imgur.com/SdmmFUd.jpg

[lb1lf]

I own a couple of these maps covering the area I grew up in (Western Norway). In some respects, the Soviet general staff mapping is more detailed than the maps from the Norwegian mapping authority - they even showed a pile of wood in our back yard! (Presumably misidentified it as an outhouse)

An educated guess is they simply bought a set of the commercially available mapping, then compared it to satellite imagery and added their own points of interest.

[cm2187]

What are the little planes on the San Francisco map? Surely there aren't 12 airstrips in the San Francisco bay. Unless that includes helipads...

[khanan]

Oh my, thats some mighty detail! Guess communism wins, in this case :)

[guard-of-terra]

1980s CIA album has map of central Moscow. On it, subway stations and embassies are marked (that's the expected), gas stations (okay) and also churches (what's weird).

Nothing more, just embassies and churches. Would like to hear a story here.

Baghdad's 2003 map has basically the same set of POI.

[Cieplak]

I'm really curious why this 14 mile strip of Antarctica is censored:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/70%C2%B010'04.0%22S+87%C2%...

Satellite map images with missing or unclear data:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_map_images_with_miss...

[Veratyr]

I'm not sure that's censored, at least by Google, I think it's just bad data. The copyright at higher zooms is shown as NASA, which would have used Landsat. In the Landsat archive, there are numerous satellite images for that region, though low quality: https://landsatlook.usgs.gov/viewer.html

Seems likely nobody at Google has taken the effort to do anything about it because who uses Google Maps to look at antarctica?

To those saying it's a military installation or SIGINT thing, I very very seriously doubt it. The Antarctic Treaty explicitly forbids military activity and an installation might be blockable by Google Maps but no one country has a monopoly on imaging satellites. It'd be seen and start a diplomatic shitstorm.

[topkekz]

also censored on https://zoom.earth/#-70.166939,87.824707,11z,sat

[7952]

I would guess that this was a gap in coverage from one source of data, that was filled in with data from another. The edges just try and blend the two sources together.

[knz]

Surely it's related to communication interception? Either for the Pacific/Southern Ocean or on the Antarctic continent.

Or a giant ruse to divert attention from elsewhere.

[arca_vorago]

Google will censor just about anything if a government asks them to and claims it's for national security. Hell, they even do it for the uber-rich independent of government.

[westmeal]

That's pretty spooky. It's most likely some military complex.

[rhizome]

The maps: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/albums

[borgdr]

I'm a bit surprised that this one was declassified given the sensitive nature of the content.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/5988128522/in/album-721...

[Karunamon]

Wait, was this actually classified to begin with?

If so, it's a case study in how that power is misused...

[colinthompson]

These are incredible. I'm especially impressed with how high res the scans are. Time for some new office posters!

[jacobolus]

Sweet planimeter a ways down the page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/sets/72157674852500522

[fafner]

Have they been uploaded to Wikipedia (Commons)?